Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use indirect in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Indirect means not direct. Example: “While not mentioning any of their competitors by name, the CEO made some indirect statements that they were acting immorally.”

Examples of indirect by meaning

adjectiveNot direct.

  • While not mentioning any of their competitors by name, the CEO made some indirect statements that they were acting immorally.
  • Se asked him some indirect questions to ascertain whether he was single.
  • Indirect messages permit communicative contacts when, without them, the alternatives would be total inhibition, silence, and solitude on the one hand, or, on the other, communicative behavior that is direct, offensive, and hence forbidden.1974, Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., chapter 8, in The Myth of Mental Illness, →ISBN, pages 139–140

adjectiveNot of obvious or immediate cause, but as a secondary result.

  • The direct result of socialising every day in the bars may be happiness and meeting new people, but the indirect results could be addiction, or even poverty.

adjectiveNot involving the quickest, shortest, or most convenient path; oblique.

  • In an effort to beat the traffic jams, they opted to take an indirect route to their destination.

nounAn indirect radiator.

  • Indirect radiators are seldom installed except for rooms on the first or second floors; and in the former case the duct, D, is very short, and in the latter it is usually from 12 to 16 feet long.1902, William S. Monroe, “Chapter 4”, in Steam Heating and Ventilation

verbTo access by means of indirection; to dereference.

  • These correspond to an indirected parallel write and an indirected parallel read operation respectively.2012, Geerd-R. Hoffmann, Dimitris K. Maretis, The Dawn of Massively Parallel Processing in Meteorology

More sentences with indirect

  • The proof we provide is a nice indirect proof due to Euclid.From the entry due to
  • She relayed his words as an indirect quotation: she said, "He told us that he wants stronger action to be taken."From the entry indirect quotation
  • It has long been known that, if range restriction is indirect rather than direct, this formula will undercorrect.From the entry undercorrect
  • He told us that he wants stronger action to be taken; there are no quote marks in this sentence because it contains an indirect quotation.From the entry indirect quotation
  • The title is an indirect hint to the three unclued lights, which in turn might say what is to be done about the diagram.From the entry unclued
  • The first post-verbal noun for ditransitive verbs is sometimes called its indirect object.2025, Edward A. F. Gibson, “Dependency Grammar” (chapter 3), in Syntax: A Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 79. From the entry ditransitive
  • When you deduct the direct and indirect costs, the picture looks a little different.2023 March 8, Gareth Dennis, “The Reshaping of things to come...”, in RAIL, number 978, page 46. From the entry account for
  • Percuss all quadrants for tones, using indirect percussion to assess density of abdominal contents (Fig. 13-11).2016, Susan F. Wilson, Jean Foret Giddens, Health Assessment for Nursing Practice, Elsevier Health Sciences, →ISBN, page 259. From the entry percuss
  • Previous studies have examined telomere lengths as an indirect measure of aging in cloned animals.2007, Peter Sutovsky, Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, page 78. From the entry telomere
  • Whether this indirect effect causes an overshifting or undershifting of price depends upon the level of spillovers.2007, Patrick W. Barnes, Economic Perspectives on Innovation and Invention, →ISBN, page 34. From the entry overshift
  • Aerobic metabolism can be measured by direct calorimetry or indirect spirometry.2006, Sharon Plowman, Denise Smith, Exercise Physiology for Health, Fitness, and Performance, 2nd edition, Wolters Kluwer Health, page 122. From the entry spirometry
  • The emmenagogue effect can be released by direct or indirect stimulation of the uterus.2001, Finn Sandberg, Desmond Corrigan, Natural Remedies: Their Origins and Uses, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 86. From the entry oligomenorrhagia
  • In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Western powers put aside the indirect forms of neo-imperialism and opted for direct colonialism.2000, Michael Parenti, “Bosnia: New Colonies”, in To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia, paperback edition, London: Verso, published…. From the entry neoimperialism
  • It is also possible to deliver a compound riposte by using an indirect feint.1999, Allan Skipp, “Key Techniques”, in Handbook of Foil Fencing, Armley, Leeds: Coachwise Business Solutions for British Fencing…. From the entry feint
  • French indirect transitive verbs, i.e. verbs which take an indirect object, cannot be passive.1999, Monique L'Huillier, Advanced French Grammar, →ISBN, page 245. From the entry indirect transitive
  • Hepatic injury due to halothane is well described and can be an indirect cause of encephalopathy.1998, Thomas Markham Brown, Alan Stoudemire, Psychiatric Side Effects of Prescription and Over-the-Counter Medications. From the entry halothane
  • The stratagem of besieging the kingdom of Wei to save the kingdom of Zhao advocates indirect confrontation.1991, Gao Yuan, “Stratagem 2: Besiege the kingdom of Wei to save the kingdom of Zhao”, in Lure the Tiger out of the Mountains: The…. From the entry Wei
  • He says: "The notion of synonymity figures implicitly also whenever we use the method of indirect quotations.1988, Rudolf Carnap, Meaning and Necessity: A Study in Semantics and Modal Logic, page 60. From the entry synonymity
  • Size of circle indicates frequency of seedlings, continuous and direct but mutafacient and indirect.1958, Genes, Plants, and People: Essays on Genetics, page 66. From the entry mutafacient
  • Indirect obliteration is very simply obtained by denuding and then suturing the lips of the cervix (hysterocleisis).1913, Henri Albert Charles Antoine Hartmann, Gynecological operations, page 515. From the entry hysterocleisis
  • Global illumination models, such as raytracing, pathtracing or radiosity, in contrast, also account for light reflections over several surfaces (indirect illumination).2022, Ralf Doerner, Wolfgang Broll, Paul Grimm, Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR), page 94. From the entry raytracing
  • He looked at the faint red lipstick mark around the rim and said, “Does this count as an indirect kiss?”2022, G. Rocket, Meet My Love. From the entry indirect kiss
  • The lighting was discreet, indirect, Star Trek–ish.2021, Robert Carr, Corby Falls, Mosaic Press, →ISBN. From the entry Star Trek–ish
  • Note that an aftercast is always an indirect cast, while two directly cast bronzes can be only variants.2016, David A. Scott, Art: Authenticity, Restoration, Forgery, page 430. From the entry aftercast
  • Analysis of the dorso-ventral muscle bundles suggested muscle degeneration in the tergosternal muscles (indirect with levator muscles) (Fig 7D).2016 March 5, “Transgenic Drosophila for Investigating DUX4 and FRG1, Two Genes Associated with Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy…. From the entry tergosternal
  • Yet, initially defaunated empty tests and live barnacles developed markedly different macrobenthic assemblages, suggesting a strong indirect effect of the predation.2015 July 18, “Bored to Death: Community-Wide Effect of Predation on a Foundation Species in a Low-Disturbance Arctic Subtidal System”, in…. From the entry defaunated
  • We knew that the direct and indirect schemes of the DIA, its thick bozone, had created our intergenerational catastrophes.2015, Elaine Coburn, edited by Emma LaRocque, More Will Sing Their Way to Freedom: Indigenous Resistance and Resurgence, Fernwood…. From the entry bozone
  • The decline in traditional, direct cybersquatting was accompanied by a rise in a form of indirect cybersquatting known as typosquatting.2014, Aaron Schwabach, Internet and the Law: Technology, Society, and Compromises, 2nd edition, ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 59. From the entry typosquatting
  • Krogerus had already recognized that the influence of sand on psammophilic species is partly direct and partly indirect.2012, H.U. Thiele, Carabid Beetles in Their Environments, →ISBN. From the entry psammophilic
  • Most setters do try to avoid indirect anagrams, though.2012 June 13, Denise Sutherland, Solving Cryptic Crosswords For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 105. From the entry indirect anagram
  • Such a sin is known as the indirect anagram.2012 November 1, David Astle, Puzzled: Secrets and clues from a life in words, Profile Books, →ISBN. From the entry indirect anagram
  • In “fractalysis”, only direct illumination is considered while the indirect lighting, as a result of reflection, is not taken into account.2011, L. Han, J.-C. Soulié, F. Boudon, D. Da Silva, T. Cokelaer, C. Pradal, L. Rouan, E. Costes, “Sensitivity analysis of light…. From the entry fractalysis
  • The jussive and cohortative usually convey more indirect, or more subtle, expressions of volition than the imperative does.2006, Robert Ray Ellis, Learning to Read Biblical Hebrew: An Introductory Grammar, page 174. From the entry jussive

Meaning of indirect

  1. adjective Not direct.
  2. adjective Not of obvious or immediate cause, but as a secondary result.
  3. adjective Not focused straight at the target or subject; whose true aim appears secondary or obscure.

Full definition of indirect

Questions about indirect in a sentence

How do you use indirect in a sentence?
Indirect is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “While not mentioning any of their competitors by name, the CEO made some indirect statements that they were acting immorally.”
What is a short sentence with indirect?
“The lighting was discreet, indirect, Star Trek–ish.”
What does indirect mean?
Indirect means not direct.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: indirect (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use indirect in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/indirect. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.